1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cord clip for fastening a cord attached to e.g. an earphone to a clothes. More particularly, the invention relates to such cord clip having a clipping portion capable of clamping an object at a clamping portion thereof and a cord holding portion capable of holding the cord.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional cord clip will be described with reference to FIG. 3. As shown, a cord clip 10 includes an alligator clip 15 consisting essentially of a spring 11, a shaft 12 and a pair of clipping portions 13, 14 and a cord holding portion 16. The alligator clip 15 and the cord holding portion 16 are connected with each other, so that in use, the cord holding portion is used for securely holding the cord of an earphone or the like and the alligator clip is used for clamping a clothes, thereby to secure the cord to the clothes.
The above-described conventional cord clip 10 has many parts, so that it presents the problem of high part costs and high assembly costs for assembling these parts.
In order to decrease the number of parts, it is conceivable, for example, to cause the clipping portions of the alligator clip 15 to pinch the cord and the clothes together at one time so that the clipping portions may function also as the cord holding portion. However, such construction has proved unsatisfactory since when the alligator clip 15 is opened to be detached from the clothes, this may result in inadvertent simultaneous detachment of the cord. This is because the direction of the force effective for pinching the clothes coincides with the direction of the force used for holding the cord and also these forces affect each other.
The present invention has been made in view of the problems described above and its primary object is to provide improved cord clip comprising a clipping portion and a cord holding portion which portions are formed as one integral component and which portions provide respective effective forces independently of each other.
For accomplishing the above-noted object, according to the present invention, a cord clip comprises a clipping portion formed by a first annular portion having a discontinuity at a part thereof and a cord holding portion formed by a second annular portion having a discontinuity at a part thereof, said clipping portion being capable of clamping an object at a clamping portion thereof provided by a narrow gap formed by the discontinuity of the first annular portion by means of an elastic resilient force of the first annular portion, said cord holding portion being capable of holding a cord therein by means of an elastic resilient force of the second annular portion, said elastic resilient force of the second annular portion being independent of said elastic resilient force of the first annular portion, said first annular portion and said second annular portion are formed integrally in a single member.
With the cord clip having the above-described construction, as the first annular portion constituting the clipping portion having a clamping portion for clamping an object such as a clothes and the second annular portion constituting the cord holding portion for holding the cord are formed integrally in a single elastic member, the number of parts required may be reduced to the minimum (only one). As a result, the parts costs and the assembly costs may be reduced. Further, because the elastic resilient force applied to clamp the object, e.g. a clothes and the elastic resilient force applied to hod the cord are independent of each other, it is possible to avoid mutual interference between these forces. Hence, when the clamping of the clothes at the clipping portion is released, there will occur no inadvertent release of the cord at the cord holding portion.
According to a further preferred feature of the invention, an opening formed between opposed ends of the first annular portion at the discontinuity thereof has a greater aperture than the narrow gap at said clamping portion. With this, the object may be easily inserted through the opening into the clamping portion. More preferably, the aperture of said opening increases along a direction in opposition to an inserting direction of the object.
With the cord clip having the above-described construction, since the opening has an aperture greater than the gap of the clamping portion and this aperture increase along the direction in opposition to the inserting direction of the object such a clothes, the object or clothes can be inserted more easily into the clamping portion. More particularly, this insertion operation may be carried out by putting the object or clothes at the opening and then pressing the cord clip against the object or clothes for fixing the former to the latter.
According to a further preferred feature of the invention, in the cord clip described above, a direction of clamping the object by the clamping portion is substantially normal to a direction of holding the cord by the cord holding portion.
With the above feature, when the object is released by applying a force in the opposite direction to the clamping direction, such releasing force is substantially normal to the cord holding force. So that, the releasing force does not affect the cord holding force. Therefore, the problem of detachment of the cord during a releasing operation of the object may be avoided even more reliably.
According to a still further preferred feature of the invention, the first annular portion and the second annular portion are formed integrally of a resin, and the first annular portion and the second annular portion are annular in a common plane.
With the above, the cord clip of the invention may be manufactured easily and inexpensively by integral molding of an elastic resin by means of a standard resin molding technique. Further, in this resin molding process, if the annular portions are in a common plane, the mold used for resin molding may be simple in shape. Also, since the axes of the two annular portions extend parallel to each other, the finished product can be easily detached from the mold.
According to a still further preferred feature of the invention, the second annular portion is formed by a portion of an inner wall of the first annular portion and an extending portion extending inwardly from the inner wall of the first annular portion.
With the above, since the other portion of the second annular portion than the extending portion is formed by a portion of the inner wall of the first annular portion, the amount of the material needed for forming the cord clip may be reduced advantageously. Moreover, since the inner wall of the first annular portion extends along the cord held within the cord holding portion of the second annular portion, it is possible to maintain the orientation of the cord clip relative to the cord relatively stably.
According to a still further preferred feature of the invention, the clamping portion consists of a mating pair of a projection and a recess which can engage with each other.
With the above feature, the object such as a clothes may be firmly clamped at the mutually engaged projection and recess of the clamping portion.